The present inventions relate to communications systems, and particularly, relate to messaging systems that allow a recipient to retrieve a message from a messaging system.
The public switched telephone network (PSTN) includes a feature whereby a caller may shield his/her identity from the person he/she is calling. The caller may implement a privacy restriction feature. With this shield in place, calling line identification services (often referred to as CallerID) generally cannot display identity information such as a calling name or a calling number in association with a call as it is received. For example, a doctor may use such a shield when making a call to a patient. If the patient""s telephone service includes a calling line identification service, the shield prevents the service from being provided with the appropriate identity information from the network element serving the patient""s calling line. Thus, the calling line identification service is defeated, and at best, it may display a xe2x80x9cprivacy restrictionxe2x80x9d or other notice with respect to the identity of the party making the call.
Unfortunately, the shield loses its protective abilities when a sender sends a message on a voice mail service (VMS) such as a network voice mail service and the message is transferred from voice mail platform to one or more other voice mail platforms. Typically, a network voice mail service that is implemented on messaging platforms that allow messages to be exchanged in an intra/inter-platform environment do not provide any facility or feature for a caller""s anonymity when such messages are transferred between platforms. For example, assume a patient subscribes to a network voice mail service. Further assume a doctor sends a message to the patient which arrives in the patient""s mailbox on the network voice mail service, and then the message is transferred to another (2d) platform. Generally, anybody retrieving the patient""s messages from the second platform may activate an identify feature whereby the calling name and/or calling number associated with the doctor""s message may be obtained.
Services other than network voice mail services also sometimes fail to include a facility or feature that protects a sender""s anonymity. So-called xe2x80x9ccorporate voice mail systemsxe2x80x9d such as may be used in businesses, educational, medical, or other institutions may also fail to include a facility or feature that protects a sender""s anonymity with respect to in-system messages.
The lack of a facility or feature for a sender""s anonymity in certain cases in message systems has led to convoluted solutions. For example, some doctors and others desiring to maintain anonymity with respect to their messages may send a message to an answering service, and then have the answering service send the message to the patient or other recipient. If the answering service sends a message for the patient or other recipient on a network voice mail service and the message is transferred to another platform, anybody retrieving the message may activate an identify feature, but only receive the identity of the answering service in response. The convoluted nature of such solutions has demonstrated a need for a messaging system that protects the anonymity of a sender even when a message is transferred from platform to one or more platforms.
The present invention solves the need for a messaging system that protects the anonymity of a sending party, should such anonymity be desired, by providing methods and systems that allow a message in a messaging system to be designated such that the message may be made available without revealing an identity of the sending party associated with the message.
Generally stated, exemplary embodiments of the present invention allow a determination to be made that the sending party associated with a message desires the message to be delivered without the identity of the sending party being revealed. In response to the determination, an anonymity indicator is included in the message. In response to the inclusion of the anonymity indicator, the identity of the sending party is withheld so that the message is made available to the recipient without making the identity of the sending party available.
More particularly stated, the present invention relates to exemplary methods and systems that provide for a message to be sent from a sending party to a recipient without the message revealing an identity of the sending party. The identity may be the name of the sending party, a calling line number associated with a calling line of the sending party, an e-mail address of the sending party, or the like. The message may be a message from the sending party to the recipient, a reply to a previous message, a forwarding message of an earlier message, or the like.
In response to a message being received from a sending party, a check is made to determine whether an anonymity feature is enabled for all messages received from the sending party, or whether the anonymity feature is enabled only for the received message. In response to finding the anonymity feature is enabled for all messages or only for the received message, an anonymity indicator is included with the message. The presence of the anonymity indicator has the effect of withholding the identity of the sending party when the message is made available to or retrieved by the recipient. A particular advantage of some of the exemplary embodiments of the present invention is that a recipient may reply to a message that has been provided to the recipient even though the identity of the sending party has not been provided to the recipient. The withholding of the identity of the sending party from inclusion with the message to the recipient does not effect the ability of the recipient to reply to the message, and therefore, to the sending party.
Another advantage of some of the exemplary embodiments of the present invention is that a recipient may reject or block a message that has been made available to the recipient without the identity of the sending party. For example, an exemplary embodiment provides that a message including an anonymity indicator may be rejected instead of being routed to the recipient.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide methods and systems that protect the anonymity of a sending party in sending a message to a recipient by withholding the identity of the sending party when the message is made available to or retrieved by the recipient.
It is another object of the present invention to provide methods and systems that allow a sending party to enable an anonymity feature with respect to all messages that the sending party sends so that the identity of the sending party is withheld when the messages are made available to or retrieved by the respective recipients.
It is also an object of the present invention to provide methods and systems that allow a sending party to enable an anonymity feature with respect to a selected message so that the identity of the sending party is withheld when the message is made available to or retrieved by the recipient.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide methods and systems that allow a recipient of a message from a sending party to reply to the message even though the message has been available or retrieved without the identity of the sending party.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide methods and systems that allow a recipient of a message from a sending party to reject the message if the message has been made available without the identity of the sending party.
That the present invention and the exemplary embodiments overcome the drawbacks set forth above and accomplish the objects of the invention will become apparent from the drawings and the detailed description below.